Valley Commerce Bancorp Reports First Quarter 2014 Results

VISALIA, Calif., April 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Valley Commerce Bancorp, (OTCBB: VCBP), a bank holding company and the parent company of Valley Business Bank, today announced unaudited first quarter 2014 net income of $743 thousand, or $0.26 per diluted common share. This matched net income of $743 thousand or $0.26 per diluted common share for the first quarter of 2013.

Allan W. Stone, President and Chief Executive Officer, remarked, "Coming off a year of record profitability, we are pleased to be off to a similar start in 2014. Drought conditions notwithstanding, we remain very optimistic about the local economy and are encouraged to see our growth strategies producing results. Our loan and deposit portfolios grew significantly in the past year even as their risk profiles improved. In addition, our core earnings remain strong which sets the stage for another successful year."

Stone added, "Our multi-year goal has been to build a community bank that can deliver products and services efficiently while meeting the challenges of a rapidly changing industry. We are seeing our efforts come to fruition and our team is entering 2014 with great enthusiasm. We believe we have a great platform for continued growth and look forward to building upon these first quarter results."

Selected financial information is presented in the following table:

March 31,

December 31,

2014

2013

2013*

ANNUALIZED KEY FINANCIAL RATIOS

Net income

$

742,587

$

742,845

$

4,054,468

Return on average equity

7.42

%

7.86

%

10.37

%

Return on average assets

0.78

%

0.83

%

1.11

%

Net interest margin

4.08

%

4.14

%

4.21

%

Efficiency ratio

70.79

%

70.57

%

69.23

%

Loan to deposit ratio at period end

68.57

%

69.34

%

73.81

%

Tier 1 leverage ratio

11.30

%

11.20

%

11.60

%

Tier 1 risk based ratio

15.98

%

16.28

%

16.22

%

Total risk-based capital ratio

17.23

%

17.54

%

17.47

%

SHARE AND PER SHARE DATA

Basic earnings per common share

$

0.27

$

0.26

$

1.45

Diluted earnings per common share

$

0.26

$

0.26

$

1.43

Quarterly weighted average common shares outstanding

2,781,077

2,815,036

2,798,477

Quarterly weighted average diluted common shares outstanding

2,814,431

2,825,733

2,826,414

Book value per common share

$

14.68

$

13.66

$

14.35

Total common shares outstanding

2,786,322

2,815,036

2,770,929

*For the year ended December 31, 2013

Loans

Net loans were $244.2 million at March 31, 2014, an increase of $9.6 million or 4% from the $234.6 million of net loans at December 31, 2013 and an increase of $23.2 million or 10% from the $221.0 million of net loans at March 31, 2013. The increase for the first quarter of 2014 occurred primarily in real estate-mortgage and real estate-construction loans. Average gross loans were $240.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2014 and $226.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2013, an increase of $14.1 million or 6%.

Net loans at March 31, 2014, December 31, 2013, and March 31, 2013 are summarized in the following table:

March 31, 2014

December 31, 2013

March 31, 2013

Commercial

$

38,485,787

16%

$

40,665,234

17%

$

35,983,395

16%

Real estate – mortgage

184,775,357

74

175,416,776

73

171,433,577

76%

Real estate – construction

19,954,944

8

17,039,578

7

14,379,051

6%

Agricultural

3,473,534

1

3,966,502

2

3,199,697

1%

Consumer and other

1,565,129

1

1,647,517

1

1,529,756

1%

Subtotal

248,254,751

100%

238,735,607

100%

226,525,476

100%

Deferred loan fees, net

(192,155)

(234,790)

(347,549)

Allowance for loan and lease losses

(3,879,639)

(3,875,124)

(5,195,415)

Total loans, net

$

244,182,957

$

234,625,693

$

220,982,512

Investment Securities

Available-for-sale investment securities were $67.3 million at March 31, 2014 compared to $66.5 million at December 31, 2013, an increase of $784 thousand or 1%. There were $3.7 million of investment securities purchased during the three months ended March 31, 2014 which were offset by normal repayments, maturities, calls, and sales. Gain on sale of investment securities was $76 thousand in 2014 compared to $126 thousand for the same period in 2013. Security sales normally result from portfolio maintenance and repositioning transactions.

The amortized cost and estimated fair value of available-for-sale investment securities at the dates indicated consisted of the following:

March 31, 2014

Gross

Gross

Estimated

Amortized

Unrealized

Unrealized

Fair

Cost

Gains

Losses

Value

Debt securities:

U.S. Government sponsored entities and agencies

$ 5,098,489

$ 49,545

$ (70,034)

$ 5,078,000

Mortgage-backed securities:

U.S. Government sponsored entities and agencies

27,759,952

186,164

(454,116)

27,492,000

Small Business Administration

10,979,775

284,225

-

11,264,000

Obligations of states and political subdivisions

23,056,658

444,155

(60,813)

23,440,000

Total

$ 66,894,874

$ 964,089

$ (584,963)

$ 67,274,000

December 31, 2013

Gross

Gross

Estimated

Amortized

Unrealized

Unrealized

Fair

Cost

Gains

Losses

Value

Debt securities:

U.S. Government sponsored entities and agencies

$ 5,189,721

$ 25,698

$ (132,419)

$ 5,083000

Mortgage-backed securities:

U.S. Government sponsored entities and agencies

28,900,413

138,087

(655,500)

28,383,000

Small Business Administration

9,844,047

354,879

(4,926)

10,194,000

Obligations of states and political subdivisions

22,804,771

230,688

(205,459)

22,830,000

Total

$ 66,738,952

$ 749,352

$ (998,304)

$ 66,490,000

Deposits

Total deposits increased by $38.2 million or 12%, from $317.9 million at December 31, 2013 to $356.1 million at March 31, 2014. The increase in deposits for 2014 was generally widespread but included transitory deposits of several business customers that are expected to be withdrawn over the next new months. Average total deposits were $338.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2014, a $22.3 million or 7% increase from the $316.6 million in average total deposits for the three months ended March 31, 2013.

Total deposits at March 31, 2014, December 31, 2013, and March 31, 2013 are summarized in the following table:

March 31, 2014

December 31, 2013

March 31, 2013

Non-interest bearing

$

163,183,821

46%

$

123,817,308

39%

$

122,546,166

38%

Interest bearing

130,619,566

37

131,802,344

41

129,053,931

41

Time deposits

62,290,918

17

62,268,507

20

67,087,956

21

Total

$

356,094,305

100%

$

317,888,159

100%

$

318,688,053

100%

Shareholders' Equity

Total shareholders' equity was $41.0 million at March 31, 2014, an increase of $1.2 million or 3%, from the $39.8 million in shareholders' equity at December 31, 2013. The increase was due to quarterly earnings of $743 thousand, an increase in accumulated other comprehensive income of $370 thousand resulting from an increase in the value of investment securities, and $260,000 in new capital from the exercise of stock options. These increases were offset by the repurchase of common stock and cash dividends paid. During the quarter ended March 31, 2014 the Company paid common stock cash dividends totaling $167 thousand or $0.06 per share. Common stock cash dividends totaled $502 thousand or $0.18 per share for the year ended December 31, 2013. Common stock repurchased during the quarter ended March 31, 2014 totaled $124 thousand, at an average of $13.94 per share. Common stock repurchased during the year ended December 31, 2013 totaled $788 thousand, at an average of $13.59 per share.

Asset Quality

Nonperforming loans at March 31, 2014 were comprised of nine nonaccrual loans spread among five customer relationships with an aggregate balance of $3.1 million compared with nine nonaccrual loans spread among five customer relationships at December 31, 2013 with an aggregate balance of $3.2 million.

Impaired loans totaled $6.1 million and $6.6 million at March 31, 2014 and December 31, 2013, respectively, and were comprised of the nonaccrual loans included in nonperforming assets and certain accruing loans whose terms have been modified from the original loan agreement. The Company had no loans over 30 days past due at December 31, 2013, including the nonaccrual loans described above and one loan over 30 days past due at March 31, 2014 that was in the process of being renewed.

A summary of nonperforming assets is set forth below:

March 31, 2014

December 31,

2013

March 31,

2013

Nonperforming loans

$ 3,080,192

$ 3,160,120

$ 4,950,374

Loans past due 90 days or more and

still accruing

-

-

-

Total nonperforming loans

$ 3,080,192

$ 3,160,120

$ 4,950,374

Other real estate owned

$ -

$ -

$ -

Total nonperforming assets

$ 3,080,192

$ 3,160,120

$ 4,950,374

Specific loss reserve

$ 107,759

$ 197,344

$ 658,563

% of nonperforming assets to total loans

1.24%

1.32%

2.19%

Nonperforming loans to total loans

1.26%

1.35%

2.24%

Nonperforming assets to total assets

0.76%

0.87%

1.36%

Classified loans

$ 12,925,549

$ 13,628,603

$ 17,267,930

30-89 Day Delinquent loans

$ 1,800,000

$ -

$ 708,713

The following table summarizes the changes in the allowance for loan and lease losses (ALLL) for the periods indicated:

CIO, CTO & Developer Resources

Three Months Ended

Three Months Ended

Year Ended

March 31, 2014

March 31, 2013

December 31, 2013

Balance at beginning of period

$

3,866,508

$

5,192,436

$

5,192,436

Charge-offs:

Commercial and agricultural

-

-

-

Real estate mortgage

-

-

(27,135)

Real estate construction

-

-

-

Consumer

(1,021)

(1,021)

Total charge-offs

(1,021)

(28,156)

Recoveries:

Commercial and agricultural

13,131

4,000

210,844

Real estate mortgage

-

-

-

Real estate construction

-

-

-

Consumer

-

-

-

Total recoveries

13,131

4,000

210,844

Net recoveries

13,131

2,979

182,688

Provision for loan losses

-

-

(1,500,000)

Balance at end of period

$

3,879,639

$

5,195,415

$

3,875,124

Net recoveries to average loans outstanding

0.005%

0.001%

0.079%

Average loans outstanding

$

240,332,182

$

226,183,371

$

231,584,419

Ending allowance to total loans outstanding

1.56%

2.30%

1.63%

The Company's ALLL was $3.9 million at December 31, 2013 and March 31, 2014 due to no loan loss provisions and $13 thousand in net recoveries during the three months ending March 31, 2014. The ALLL represented 1.56% of total loans at March 31, 2014 compared to 1.63% at December 31, 2013. The ALLL percentage decrease resulted from increased loan volume. The portion of the ALLL relating to specific impaired loans was $108 thousand at March 31, 2014 and $197 thousand at December 31, 2013.

Net Interest Income and Net Interest Margin

The following table presents the Company's average balance sheet, including weighted average yields and rates on a taxable-equivalent basis, for the three-month periods indicated:

Average balances and weighted average yields and costs

Three Months ended March 31,

2014

2013

Interest

Average

Interest

Average

Average

income/

yield/

Average

income/

yield/

(dollars in thousands)

Balance

Expense

Cost

Balance

Expense

Cost

ASSETS

Due from banks

$

43,784

$

28

0.26%

$

46,625

$

31

0.27%

Available-for-sale investment securities:

Taxable

43,263

224

2.10%

31,681

168

2.15%

Exempt from Federal income taxes (1)

23,243

214

5.66%

18,385

122

4.08%

Total securities (1)

66,506

438

3.34%

50,066

290

2.86%

Loans (2) (3)

240,109

3,153

5.33%

225,797

3,142

5.64%

Total interest-earning assets (1)

350,399

3,619

4.32%

322,488

3,463

4.43%

Noninterest-earning assets, net of allowance for loan losses

36,811

40,081

Total assets

$

387,210

$

362,569

LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY

Deposits:

Other interest bearing

$

139,170

$

101

0.29%

$

129,449

$

113

0.35%

Time deposits less than $100,000

17,468

22

0.51%

19,363

27

0.57%

Time deposits $100,000 or more

44,692

57

0.52%

47,370

69

0.59%

Total interest-bearing deposits

201,330

180

0.36%

196,182

209

0.43%

Junior subordinated deferrable interest debentures

3,093

27

3.54%

3,093

28

3.67%

Total interest-bearing liabilities

204,423

207

0.41%

199,275

237

0.48%

Noninterest bearing deposits

137,564

120,404

Other liabilities

4,639

4,574

Total liabilities

346,626

324,253

Shareholders' equity

40,584

38,316

Total liabilities and shareholders' equity

$

387,210

$

362,569

Net interest income and margin (1)

$

3,412

4.08%

$

3,226

4.14%

(1)

Interest income is not presented on a taxable-equivalent basis, however, the average yield was calculated on a taxable-equivalent basis by using a marginal tax rate of 34%.

(2)

Nonaccrual loans are included in total loans. Interest income is included on nonaccrual loans only to the extent cash payments have been received. There was $53 thousand and $94 thousand in foregone interest on nonaccrual loans for the three months ended March 31, 2014 and 2013, respectively. Income received from nonaccrual loans was $41 thousand for 2014 period and $85 in the 2013 period.

(3)

Interest income on loans includes amortized loan fees, net of costs, of $140 thousand and $118 thousand for 2014 and 2013, respectively.

Net interest income for the quarters ended March 31, 2014 and 2013 was $3.4 million and $3.2 million, respectively. Net interest income increased during the 2014 period due to increases in the average balances of earning assets, increased yields on investment securities and reductions in the costs of interest bearing liabilities. These improvements were partially offset by declines in the yields earned on loans and to a lesser extent, our continued growth of core deposits.

Net interest margin was 4.08% and 4.14% for the quarters ended March 31, 2014 and 2013, respectively. Average loan yield was 5.33% and 5.64% for the three months ended March 31, 2014 and 2013, respectively, a decrease of 31 basis points (bps). This decrease was offset by a 7 bps decrease in the average rate paid on deposits which was 0.36% and 0.43% for the three months ended March 31, 2014 and 2013, respectively. The improvement in our cost of deposits was primarily due to a reduction in the average balances of time deposits, which decreased to $62.2 million at March 31, 2014 compared to $66.7 million at March 31, 2013. The net interest margin was also positively affected by an increase in the average balance of loans.

Non-Interest Income

The following table describes the components of non-interest income for the three-month periods ended March 31, 2014 and 2013:

Three Months ended

March 31,

2014

2013

Increase

(Decrease)

Service charges

$

163,617

$

153,329

$

10,288

Gain on sale of available-for-sale investment securities

76,021

125,926

(49,905)

Mortgage loan brokerage fees

5,549

13,449

(7,900)

Earnings on cash surrender value of life insurance policies

73,387

77,308

(3,921)

Other

88,086

61,456

26,630

Total non-interest income

$

406,660

$

431,468

$

(24,808)

For the quarter ended March 31, 2014, non-interest income totaled $407 thousand, a decrease of $25 thousand or 6% from the $431 thousand recorded during the first quarter of 2013. Decreases in gains on sales of investment securities and mortgage loan underwriting fees contributed to the decrease in non-interest income during the 2014 period, which were offset by increases in FHLB stock dividends included in other and service charges.

Non-Interest Expense

The following table describes the components of non-interest expense for the three-month periods ended March 31, 2014 and 2013:

Three Months ended

March 31,

2014

2013

Increase

(Decrease)

Salaries and employee benefits

$

1,652,756

$

1,566,061

$

86,695

Occupancy and equipment

326,578

355,339

(28,761)

Other real estate owned

-

78

(78)

Data processing

138,036

137,788

248

Operations

72,220

74,767

(20,804)

Professional and legal

95,571

74,767

20,804

Advertising and business development

79,024

52,032

26,992

Telephone and postal

74,112

55,587

18,525

Supplies

45,282

52,390

(7,108)

Assessment and insurance

78,984

88,393

(9,409)

Other expenses

140,834

136,034

4,800

Total non-interest expense

$

2,703,397

$

2,588,279

$

115,118

For the quarters ended March 31, 2014 and 2013, non-interest expense increased from $2.6 million to $2.7 million. Salaries and employee benefit expense increased by $103 thousand or 7% due to increases in stock option compensation expense. Professional and legal expense also increased by $21 thousand or 28% due to the timing of services provided by third parties. Advertising increased by $27 thousand or 52% due to advertisements used to support our various lending promotions. Telephone and postal increased by $19 thousand or 33% due to transitional costs of changing data service plans. These were offset by a $29 thousand or 8% decrease in occupancy and equipment expense due to lesser expenditure for small equipment purchases. FDIC insurance and assessment expense decreased by $9 thousand or 11% which reflected more favorable risk factors in the FDIC premium calculation. There also was a $21 thousand or 28% decrease in operational costs due to reduced courier costs.

For the quarters ended March 31, 2014 and 2013 the effective tax rate increased to 33.4% from 30.5%, due primarily to the curtailment of certain tax credits and deductions previously allowed by California through December 31, 2013.

OTHER INFORMATION: Valley Commerce Bancorp stock trades on NASDAQ's Over the Counter Bulletin Board under the symbol VCBP. Valley Business Bank, the wholly owned subsidiary of Valley Commerce Bancorp, is a commercial bank that commenced operations in 1996. Valley Business Bank operates through Business Banking Centers in Visalia, Tulare, and Fresno, California and has branch offices in Woodlake and Tipton, California. Additional information about Valley Business Bank is available from the Bank's website at http://www.valleybusinessbank.net.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: In addition to historical information, this release includes forward-looking statements, which reflect management's current expectations for Valley Commerce Bancorp's future financial results, business prospects and business developments. Management's expectations for Valley Commerce Bancorp's future necessarily involve assumptions, estimates and the evaluation of risks and uncertainties. Various factors could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those expectations. The forward-looking statements contained herein represent management's expectations as of the date of this release. Valley Commerce Bancorp undertakes no obligation to release publicly the results of any revisions to the forward-looking statements included herein to reflect events or circumstances after today, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. For those statements, the Company claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

VALLEY COMMERCE BANCORP

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(UNAUDITED)

March 31,

2014

December 31,

2013

March 31,

2013

Assets

Cash and due from banks

$

71,357,818

$

42,006,511

$

68,993,747

Available-for-sale investment securities, at fair value

67,274,000

66,490,000

51,948,000

Loans, net of deferred fees

248,062,596

238,500,817

226,177,927

Less: allowance for loan and lease losses

3,879,639

3,875,124

5,195,415

Net loans

244,182,957

234,625,693

220,982,512

Bank premises and equipment, net

7,573,577

7,701,676

7,988,134

Cash surrender value of bank-owned life insurance

8,333,401

8,268,894

8,062,100

Accrued interest receivable and other assets

5,662,917

6,044,999

6,353,650

Total assets

$

404,384,670

$

365,137,773

$

364,328,143

Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity

Deposits:

Noninterest-bearing

$

163,183,821

$

123,817,308

$

122,546,166

Interest-bearing

192,910,484

194,070,851

196,141,887

Total deposits

356,094,305

317,888,159

318,688,053

Accrued interest payable and other liabilities

4,216,422

4,393,172

4,088,364

Junior subordinated deferrable interest debentures

3,093,000

3,093,000

3,093,000

Total liabilities

363,403,727

325,374,331

325,869,417

Commitments and contingencies

Shareholders' equity:

Common stock - no par value; 30,000,000 shares authorized;

issued and outstanding 2,786,322 shares at March 31, 2014 and

2,770,929 share at December 31, 2013 and 2,815,036 shares at March 31, 2013

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Internet of Things (IoT) will be a hybrid ecosystem of diverse devices and sensors collaborating with operational and enterprise systems to create the next big application.
In their session at @ThingsExpo, Bramh Gupta, founder and CEO of robomq.io, and Fred Yatzeck, principal architect leading product development at robomq.io, will discuss how choosing the right middleware and integration strategy from the get-go will enable IoT solution developers to adapt and grow with the industry, while at...

If you have a Network Operations Center (or NOC, as the kids call it), you have a skilled set of eyes monitoring your system and alerting your engineers when things go wrong. (If you have something like a NOC, such as a first tier team that processes tickets, we’re looking at you, too). You also probably have strict SLAs and a need for high availability at all times. You can’t waste a second when ...

In recent years, we’ve watched mobile, cloud technologies and Internet of Things (IoT) enable increased connectivity for every network and every industry, ranging from connected cars to commercial vehicles and fleet management to smart cities to data centers. At MWC, it was clear that professionals in these areas are continuing to make strides in their fields. Below are a few of the major developm...

DevOps is all the rage these days and with good reason as it promises to reduce the time-to-market for new applications. It also promises to improve change management, allowing teams to deploy changes to their applications quickly and efficiently. However, DevOps isn’t something you buy, install, or implement; rather it is the symptom of an appropriate organizational system.
In his session at De...

When it comes to microservices there are myths and uncertainty about the journey ahead. Deploying a “Hello World” app on Docker is a long way from making microservices work in real enterprises with large applications, complex environments and existing organizational structures. February 19, 2015 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET → 45 Minutes Join our four experts: Special host Gene Kim, Gary Gruver, Randy Sh...

You deployed an app. Nothing has changed in three days, but it suddenly crashes. Why? Memory leak.
You deployed an app. Nothing has changed in three weeks, but it suddenly stops working. Why? A database query came back empty and the web application freaked out trying manipulate a null value, deciding instead to just stop in its track and return nothing.
You deployed a load balancing service. N...

Recent announcements from Google about the future of Glass naturally ignited an explosion of commentary in the tech media. For those of us in the Glass at Work world, the news that Glass has “graduated” from Google[x] into a true business unit headed by Tony Fadell is very promising. Yet many outlets’ coverage focused on the end of the Glass Explorer program for consumers, characterizing it as the...

This month I want to revisit supporting infrastructure and datacenter environments. I have touched (some would say rant) upon this topic since my post in April 2014 called "Take a Holistic View of Support". My thoughts and views on this topic have not changed at all: it's critical for any organization to have a holistic, comprehensive strategy and view of how they support their IT infrastructure a...

For me the mantra of achieving speed via automation tools is nothing new. In fact I was ‘automating’ Citrix Metaframe builds using windows scripting techniques back in 2004. The market though, has become awash with different automation products and it’s fair to say that many enterprises now suffer from ‘automation sprawl’. This results in a tactical rather than the strategic approach to automation...

It's spring in the Northeast, and this week we're launching a new blog post series, "Everything You Want to Know about Windows Server 2003 Migration." Why a series of posts on WS2003? Even as summer and EOS is just months away, our "State of Readiness for Windows Server 2003 End of Support" survey reveals the shocking truth: most of you haven't done anything about remediation yet, and most will no...

SYS-CON Events announced today the IoT Bootcamp – Jumpstart Your IoT Strategy, being held June 9–10, 2015, in conjunction with 16th Cloud Expo and Internet of @ThingsExpo at the Javits Center in New York City. This is your chance to jumpstart your IoT strategy.
Combined with real-world scenarios and use cases, the IoT Bootcamp is not just based on presentations but includes hands-on demos and wal...

While recently attending a Dynatrace User Group in Hartford, I had the opportunity to sit in on a great presentation from a leading US insurance company as they explained their three-year APM journey. I see a lot of these success stories, but this one was especially impressive. To see how they have refined their internal processes, successes and performance best practices to ensure delivery of hig...

Microservice architectures are the new hotness, even though they aren't really all that different (in principle) from the paradigm described by SOA (which is dead, or not dead, depending on whom you ask). One of the things this decompositional approach to application architecture does is encourage developers and operations (some might even say DevOps) to re-evaluate scaling strategies. In particul...

Keeping data from getting out into the wild or being damaged by cyber attackers is what keeps CISOs, the executive team and boards of directors up at night. To protect organizations, cybersecurity needs to be automated and real-time, it needs to learn contextually like we do and it needs to monitor every corner of the network in a way that organizations can afford without sacrificing coverage.

Even though it’s now Microservices Journal, long-time fans of SOA World Magazine can take comfort in the fact that the URL – soa.sys-con.com – remains unchanged. And that’s no mistake, as microservices are really nothing more than a new and improved take on the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) best practices we struggled to hammer out over the last decade. Skeptics, however, might say that this...

Microservices are the result of decomposing applications. That may sound a lot like SOA, but SOA was based on an object-oriented (noun) premise; that is, services were built around an object - like a customer - with all the necessary operations (functions) that go along with it. SOA was also founded on a variety of standards (most of them coming out of OASIS) like SOAP, WSDL, XML and UDDI. Microse...

Right off the bat, Newman advises that we should "think of microservices as a specific approach for SOA in the same way that XP or Scrum are specific approaches for Agile Software development". These analogies are very interesting because my expectation was that microservices is a pattern. So I might infer that microservices is a set of process techniques as opposed to an architectural approach. Y...

Our guest on the podcast this week is Jesse Proudman, Founder and CTO of Bluebox. We discuss Walmart’s recent OpenStack success story and the expanding capabilities of DIY private clouds. While DIY private clouds require large investments in configuring open source software to meet business needs, they can have several advantages over managed services alternatives. Listen in to learn how a DIY mod...

As a group of concepts, DevOps has converged on several prominent themes including continuous software delivery, automation, and configuration management (CM). These integral pieces often form the pillars of an organization’s DevOps efforts, even as other bigger pieces like overarching best practices and guidelines are still being tried and tested. Being that DevOps is a relatively new paradigm - ...

There's a lot of focus on the performance of mobile communications given the incredible rate at which mobile is outpacing legacy PC (did you ever think we'd see the day when we called it that?) usage. There's been tons of research on the topic ranging from the business impact (you really can lose millions of dollars per second of delay) to the technical mechanics of how mobile communications is im...

Microservices, for the uninitiated, are essentially the decomposition of applications into multiple services. This decomposition is often based on functional lines, with related functions being grouped together into a service. While this may sound a like SOA, it really isn't, especially given that SOA was an object-centered methodology that focused on creating services around "nouns" like customer...

The competition among public cloud providers is red hot, private cloud continues to grab increasing shares of IT budgets, and hybrid cloud strategies are beginning to conquer the enterprise IT world.

Big Data is driving dramatic leaps in resource requirements and capabilities, and now the Internet of Things promises an exponential leap in the size of the Internet and Worldwide Web.

The world of SDX now encompasses Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDCs) as the technology world prepares for the Zettabyte Age.

Add the key topics of WebRTC and DevOps into the mix, and you have three days of pure cloud computing that you simply cannot miss.

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